Infection
by poisons
Summary: It was raining when you showed up at Dr. Cox's apartment. A day after the TV and radio stations stopped broadcasting, and a few hours after all communication was silent. Two days after the outbreak.
1. infection

**a/n:** So this story was originally part of the collection of stories I'm writing for the 2dozenowies challenge on Livejournal, but it's sort of sprawled into its own monster, so I've decided to make it its own story. Sorry if I screw up anyone's favorites lists or alerts. It contains slash (of the Cox/JD variety) and zombie-related violence, so if either or both of these things makes you squeamish it's probably best if you don't read it. :D

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i. _the end_

It was raining when you showed up at Dr. Cox's apartment. A day after the TV and radio stations stopped broadcasting, and a few hours after all communication was silent. Two days after the outbreak.

"Hey," you said while you stood dripping wet in the hallway, your eyes a little puffy and red around the edges, "maybe we should get out of here."

He didn't open the door all the way, kept the chain lock on and studied you through the three-inch opening. "You haven't been ... exposed. Have you?"

You shook your head. "Is ... is Jordan with you?" you asked, trying to look past him.

He didn't reply for a moment. "She went to the supermarket."

"The supermarket."

"Two days ago. With Jack and Jennifer."

"You haven't heard from her."

"No," he said, letting the lock off its track and opening the door properly, standing aside to let you in.

There was a gun in his hand, probably trained on you through the door the whole time. _Oh, Christ._ The thought of it sent chills down your spine.

"So, um," you began, wondering how best to put the fact that you both needed to get the fuck out of the city _now_, to somewhere where this thing hadn't reached. "I've got a bag packed." You gestured at the backpack on your shoulders. "I mean, it isn't much, 'cause we've got to pack light, but it's enough. On the way over here I went to the hospital and took some first aid supplies when no one was looking."

He nodded. "What else have you got?"

"Well, um, my shovel," you said, holding up your shovel, still with a little blood and brains on it, "some water, some clothes, batteries, walkie-talkies. Some granola bars. A couple of pocketknives."

He looked inside your backpack. "Jesus. Have you been _looting_, Newbie?"

"Well, not _really_. It's not like I've been taking TVs or anything. Just stuff we needed." Yes, you had been looting, and it was horrifying, being stuck between panicking people and intermittent zombie hordes. You kept a low profile, sneaking into smaller abandoned convenience stores and gun shops instead of supermarkets and warehouse stores, and you still encountered crazy people with guns and zombies that looked at you like the main fucking course.

Zombies. You hated to call them that because it sounded too much like those awful movies that Dan loved so much when you were teenagers. _Night of the Living Dead. Day of the Dead. Dawn of the Dead. Mid-Afternoon of the Dead. Late Morning Coffee Break of the Dead._

But what other kind of monster moans like that, tearing people apart and devouring them?

"Have you heard from Carla and Gandhi?" he asked you while he was packing a backpack for himself.

"Yeah. They took Izzy and left yesterday. They were going east somewhere. He said he didn't really know where." You didn't tell him that you'd cried then, clinging to Turk and Carla and Izzy and bawling like a little kid, like you'd never see them again, because you had the feeling that you probably wouldn't. The phone lines were down and they'd come to your place (you were lucky that you were back from foraging or they'd have been gone and you'd never know what happened to them - not that you do now, because the phones still don't work and you've tried every day since they left but all you get is that cold mechanical woman's voice telling you that your call did not go through, and to please try again later) and Turk did all the talking because Carla looked like she couldn't because she was probably seconds away from crying herself, and Izzy just stared at you. "We're leaving, JD. It's ... it's dangerous here, you know?" You'd nodded, and you weren't able to stop your tears, and then the weight of all of it just _hit_ you and you held onto them and they'd asked you to come with them but you said no.

"Bambi, we love you," Carla called out as they left your building.

"What about Barbie?" You didn't answer at first, because oh, Jesus, Elliot. "Newbie?"

"I called her a couple of days ago and she ... something happened on her end. The last I heard was ..." You couldn't finish.

Dr. Cox nodded. "Why didn't you go with the Turkeltons?"

You watched him for a second before you said anything. "I wanted to make sure you were okay."

He looked up at you then, and asked, "Where should we go?" and you were in awe that he thought that you had any idea about any of this.

"I don't know. Past the Rockies?"

"East, then."

"Yeah. I think it hasn't hit out there yet. At least that's the last thing I heard from the TV or radio."

"Right. And you wouldn't happen to know how to siphon gas, would you?"

"Yeah."

"And you're sure about this? Sure we shouldn't just go to Oregon, to the mountains and just wait it out?"

You laughed then, an ugly fucked-up laugh. "I'm not sure of anything."

"Well then leave your high heels and your ballroom gown here, Anastasia, 'cause you won't need 'em where we're going."

You wanted to smile then, but you realized quickly you didn't have it in you. You tried to tell yourself that at least you'd gotten someone out, that you wouldn't have to do this alone like you thought you would, but all you could really think about was the people you care about. You kept remembering Elliot's screams on the phone (and how your calling her might have alerted the zombies to her presence), the way Turk kept looking back at you as they were walking away, the look on Dr. Cox's face when he told you Jordan and Jack and little JD were missing and presumed eaten.

You thought about all of them, and you smiled weakly and excused yourself to the bathroom, and tried really hard not to let Dr. Cox hear you crying again.

ii. _sink_

It's only been a couple of days since you left and you still cry every once in a while, but at least you don't sob anymore (you're not sure you really have the energy for it anymore). You look out the window and sniffle, mostly because you saw a Mini Cooper on the side of the road yesterday and you screamed at Dr. Cox to stop, stop, because it looked like Turk and Carla's car and what if -

"Alright, Newbie, calm down." He put the car in reverse and backed up to the Mini Cooper that may or may not have been the Turks' car. You got out, running over to it, stumbling a little because you'd been sitting for so long and you hadn't stretched your legs and your foot was asleep. You tried the handle on the driver's side door: it was unlocked, and the keys were still in the ignition. You took them in your hand and realized it wasn't their car: the key ring didn't have the little medicine vial filled with mineral oil and shiny confetti that Carla had made attached to it, no car seat in the back for Izzy, and the registration in the glove compartment said that the car was registered to Sammy Matsuura.

"Find anything?" Dr. Cox's voice was right behind you, and you started, bumping your head against the steering wheel.

"No. It's not theirs."

"Anything we can take with us?" Dr. Cox went around to the passenger side, opening the door and pulling the seat forward, rooting through the things on the back seat. "Couple bottles of water. Better than nothing, right?"

You nodded, opening the center console and finding a bottle of extra-strength Tylenol, some caffeine pills, and a few joints in a plastic baggie in the center console. "Not bad," you said, holding up the baggie so Dr. Cox could see.

You cried then, pushing your fists into your eyes, hiding your face. "Oh god, it's not theirs," you muttered, and you heard Dr. Cox close the passenger side door of the Mini and go back to his own car, and you didn't know whether you wanted him to say something or to just keep saying nothing like he was doing.

Every once in a while he'll put his hand on your shoulder, and you'll keep looking out the window but you'll lean into his touch a little, and you cringe, preparing for another Dr. Girl Name barb, but nothing ever comes, and you always think that out here in the middle of nowhere you'd never know what was happening. There are no zombies out here, because they stay where the food is, and cities like L.A. and Sacramento and even little cities like Sherman Oaks are still packed with people.

It's the middle of the night when Dr. Cox tells you to hunt through his bag for Sammy Mastuura's caffeine pills and you stumble across his gun. You recoil at first, jumping back like you've just seen a snake or something, and then think to ask why he didn't bring any bullets.

"I did," he replies, and you dig around some more and you come up with two.

"_Two_? What, are you hoping they'll just line up in single file so you can -"

"They're not for _them_," he says calmly, cutting you off, and his voice gives you chills.

iii. _store_

You hit a small town somewhere between Carlsbad and El Paso - it's actually not a town so much as it is a strip of gas stations, convenience stores and drug stores and corpses stacked up along the highway.

The smell is awful.

It gags you a little, but Dr. Cox wants to get whatever you can from the gas pumps and the stores. "No perishables, Newbie," he tells you, directing you toward the drug store. "And make sure to grab a can opener."

You're amazed and disturbed that the store is as clean as it is - amazed that you should be so lucky to find something like this, and disturbed at just how quickly things must have escalated here.

So you get a cart and start grabbing the most nutritious food you can find - drug stores don't have much - and stay away from the soda and junk food since that's likely to do more harm than good. You find some tuna, some wheat bread, raisins and dried apricots and peaches, jerky, peanuts, lots and lots of bottled water. Vitamins and Pepto-Bismol and more extra-strength Tylenol (Sammy Matsuura's bottle was over half-empty). In the pharmacy there's all the pills you could ever need, great big bottles of azithromycin and vancomycin, sleeping pills, stimulants, muscle relaxers, pain medicine. You start hauling it all out to the car and see Dr. Cox filling little red plastic gas cans. "I've got fifteen gallons so far, Newbie," he says, and you worry aloud what hauling all this crap might be doing to your mileage, which wasn't really that good to begin with.

"What are you saying?" he asks, looking up at you.

You shrug. "There's other cars around here, is all. Quieter cars that get better mileage."

"So along with petty thievery and looting, you want to be a car thief too?" he asks you, sounding amused.

"I wouldn't call it thievery. Just survival."

"Point taken." He looks back down at his gas cans. "I'll see what I can do. Keep foraging."

So you keep foraging, pushing all the stuff in carts out next to the car. In the gas station you find a couple of Mag-Lites under the counter, along with a shotgun.

It freaks you out, of course, just sitting there, and it's even scarier because unlike Dr. Cox's little pistol you've got no idea if this monster is loaded or not. You always were afraid of guns. (There was that one time when Mom's third husband got drunk and fired a round right into the vinyl siding of the house, less than a foot away from your head. You were twelve.)

"Hey," you call out to him. "What do you know about shotguns?"

"Next to nothing," he replies, still kneeling down, filling gas cans. "Why do you ask?"

"I found one."

"Is it loaded?"

"I don't know." _And I'm not particularly eager to find out,_ you add silently.

"I'll check it out in a second."

Eventually, you've both decided that it really couldn't hurt to have something like this with you, and it's not like it's that difficult to use - for Dr. Cox to use, anyway. You refuse to touch it, and he smirks and calls you Polly and tells you that it's time to go and it'd probably be best if you made a last run-through to make sure there's nothing you missed. You remember the can opener, that you almost forgot to get one. Good thing he reminded you.

You've made a general mess of things in the drugstore (since you doubt anyone's around to care whether things are neat and tidy or not), but you find a couple of can openers (thinking that it probably wouldn't hurt to take more than one, since it'd be just your luck that if you only took one you'd lose it or break it and then you'd be stuck) and start to make your way out.

But first you pass by the "family planning" section (a euphemism that always made you put mental quotation marks around it because it's just so ridiculous). You stand there for a second, holding your three stupid can openers (three because after you'd decided that you could be just unlucky enough to lose or break the first can opener, you figured you could be unlucky enough to break or lose both of them, so you decided to take another one, because losing or breaking three can openers is just unlikely; even so, you were just barely been able stop yourself from taking the entire shelf of can openers), and you find yourself looking outside at Dr. Cox, searching for car keys, swearing and grousing, running his fingers through his hair.

You watch him, see him smile a little when he finally finds a medium-sized blue sedan whose keys are apparently in the ignition, and that smile makes something inside you jump, and you figure _what the hell_, and you grab a couple boxes of condoms and a big bottle of lube and shove them down into your backpack.

You get back out to where Dr. Cox is siphoning the gas out of his Porsche's tank. He's got ten five-gallon gas cans on the ground next to him. "It'll have to do," he says when he sees you looking, "that's all the gas cans I could find. I've filled the new car up."

You nod, and start filling the trunk, being careful not to look at him.

The sedan is much quieter, and you find that you can't feel every single little bump in the road anymore. Dr. Cox seems a little annoyed that he had to give up his Porsche, but he says that he might as well get used to making sacrifices, since this could go on for a long time. He pauses at the word sacrifice, and you try to ignore the way his voice seemed to crack a little.

iv. _bored_

You're glad you convinced him to get a different car, because it's easier to just fall asleep in this one - probably made even easier by the fact that you took one of the muscle relaxers you jacked from the pharmacy. You don't dream while you're on these pills - it's like someone hits you with a sledgehammer and then you're out for several hours. It's dawn when you wake up, and Dr. Cox is scrolling through the radio stations, wondering if somewhere out here there's a signal, but of course there's nothing but static. You watch him sigh in defeat and turn the CD player on again.

"Hey, Newbie. Feeling alright?"

You nod and sit up, glad for the reclining seats. "I could drive, if you want." You mostly say it out of politeness. You have no desire to drive and you know he has no desire to let you.

He needs to feel like he has control over _something_. You need to feel safe. So he drives. You're basically along for the ride. He shakes his head. "I pulled over and got some sleep a few hours ago. I'm fine."

You're bored. You used to play car games whenever you and Turk were on a long drive (or even a short drive), but no way will Dr. Cox be up for that. So it's just you and him and the Rolling Stones on the stereo, which leaves your mind too much room to wander.

You have been seeing dead bodies everywhere. Long open stretches of highway are pretty much the only place where you don't see them, but everywhere else ... they're there. Some just dropped dead on the side of the road (which is good, isn't it, if they're zombies and they're dying so quickly? At least they're not like the movie zombies), some have been devoured.

He catches you looking out the window sometimes, at the corpses. "Don't look," he'll say. "All you'll do is keep yourself awake."

You almost say it's too late to be worried about that, but you don't. You don't say much of anything lately.

You start to dig through your bag for another muscle relaxer, intent on knocking yourself out for another few hours because you're going crazy with the boredom, and when you open your bag, one of the boxes of condoms stares up at you and you balk, and you feel heat rising to your face.

"I think you've taken enough downers for today, Anna," Dr. Cox says to you, putting his hand across your chest, his eyes still on the road (thank god). "Save some for the rest of us, yeah?"

You zip your bag closed, hoping he doesn't need to go into it for anything, and fling yourself back against the seat, still looking out the window, wondering if it'd be worth it to whine about the Rolling Stones CD which has been playing since yesterday.

v. _dirt_

He's watching you now to make sure you don't take anymore pills. So much for your newfound escape.

You whined enough and got him to change the CD, and even though Neil Young kind of bores you, you keep your mouth shut because at least it isn't Mick Jagger yelling about clouds or satisfaction or women or whatever.

It's been several days since you showered, and you can't really get your mind off the feeling that your hair is positively dripping with oil. You feel grimy all the time now. You don't even want to eat, you feel so dirty. You mumble this fact aloud - the overarching feeling of filthiness and the fact that you can't seem to sleep is giving you trouble differentiating between your internal monologue and the things that actually come out of your mouth now, which has resulted in you being the chatty Cathy that Dr. Cox knows so well. He doesn't tell you to shut up, though, just nods grimly whenever you say something.

"I feel sorry for the cows. Who's going to milk them, doesn't it hurt them if they don't get milked often enough?"

"The oil drills are kind of cute. Like those drink-y birds."

"I didn't actually know tumbleweeds existed."

"I feel really gross. I really wish I could sleep."

"Didn't we just pass that same oil field a little while ago?"

"Could you stop the car? I think I need to throw up."

vi. _sick_

You're not sure why you're sick, but you end up dry heaving all over the highway - well, kind of. "All over the highway" sort of implies that there's something coming out, when there isn't.

"You haven't been eating anything."

"Yeah," you say between retching.

"It couldn't have been from the food."

"No. I wasn't eating _because_ I felt sick." You're on your knees on the road in the middle of the desert, tumbleweeds and sand and oil fields all around you (but thankfully no zombies) and you're trying to diagnose yourself. You wonder if he's worried whether you've been infected.

Shit.

You get up, your knees a little shaky, and you go back over to the car, collapsing in your seat. "Good thing I thought to get some Pepto-Bismol." You're sort of slurring a little, wiping throwing-up tears from your eyes (which are different from regular tears, dammit). You have some difficulty opening the bottle, because your hands are weak and shaky too, but you pull away when Dr. Cox tries to take it from you to open it himself. You eventually get it open, straining like you're trying to lift weights or open a pickle jar or something, and you swallow it right from the bottle.

When you vomit again a few minutes later, it's pink and thick and bile-flavored instead of that pleasant minty taste it had before. "I'm sorry," you babble at Dr. Cox, "I'm sorry. Jesus, what'm I gonna do? It could be from that piece of bread I ate the other day, what if I've got ergot poisoning or something? That thing that happened during all those witch hunts that made people crazy. If I go crazy you're going to think I'm infected and then what'll I do?"

"Come on," he says when you're done moaning and you're just rolling around on the ground mumbling. He hooks his hands under your arms and pulls you up, "We've got to find you a bed to sleep in."

vii. _treatment_

He's found you a bed.

You don't really remember getting in it, or even getting out of the car, although you know you must have, because you just can't picture him carrying you at all.

You're in a double motel room - Dr. Cox is in the other bed, sleeping (snoring a little, and you realize that's what woke you up), an open book resting facedown on his chest. You stand up (slowly - you don't really know if you're up to moving around much yet) and stagger to the bathroom, looking at yourself in the mirror. You're normally pale, but this is ridiculous. You look like you've died and _oh Jesus what if you _are_ a zombie_?

"Newbie?" You turn, and Dr. Cox is moving toward you, frowning. "How are you feeling?"

"Better." Kind of. You still feel disgusting and you were kind of hoping for a shower before you had to talk about anything.

"You should. You slept for two days." He takes you by the shoulder and leads you back over to your bed. "Here," he says, giving you a can of ginger ale. "Drink that."

You shake your head, putting it down on the nightstand and starting to get up again. "No. I don't want anything, just a shower."

You get a little annoyed when he pushes you back down on the bed, putting the back of his hand to your forehead and telling you that you were running a high fever for those two days and that seeing as how you've eaten nothing for even longer than that, you're going to drink the damn ginger ale even if he could drill for oil on your scalp. "I know you're gross, Courtney, I've been looking at you and smelling you for days. If I can live with it, you can. Drink the god damn soda. Not too fast."

So you do, and you hurry into the shower after you've finished, standing under the hot water for at least an hour. Thank god there's power here, and water and soap and shampoo and toothpaste and everything, really.

There's no hair gel, and it pains you, but at least you're clean and your mouth doesn't taste like an animal crawled down your throat and died. You giggle a little at the image, falling backward on your bed and looking up at the ceiling.

"Thanks for the ginger ale," you say, still giggling, "I feel a lot better."

"Sure," Dr. Cox replies. "Look, I was thinking we could stay here for a couple of days. Driving has lost its charm, and this place has electricity and running water and a distinct lack of zombies."

While you're here, you learn quickly to knock on doors before you go into rooms. There aren't many zombies here, but there are enough, because it only takes one to bite you.

There are a few other people staying here, people fleeing California and Arizona and Nevada. Apparently half of the town's residents have stayed, and the owner of the motel is letting people stay for free. You're basically refugees.

One woman swears that the bite won't infect you, but someone else asks how it could be so widespread if that weren't the case.

Still, it gets you thinking. Particularly because you saw bite marks on Dr. Cox's arm and hand and you wonder whether he's going to turn.

viii. _storm_

You're jumpy lately.

And no wonder. Even though it's been a couple of days since you noticed that Dr. Cox had been bitten, and the marks looked a couple of days old then, you still worry. You don't want him to be a zombie, and you don't want to become a zombie yourself. You don't want to have to kill him.

So you don't say anything, but you watch him carefully, and you listen carefully. When he leaves the room, even just for some air or to get away from you, you follow him, your shovel in your hand.

Eventually, of course, he notices, and he turns around and snaps at you, demanding to know why the hell you're following him everywhere and can't he get two god damn minutes alone without you looking at him like some fucking puppy or lovesick schoolgirl?

He's yelling, and it makes you nervous, so you tighten your grip on your shovel and move backward, away from him.

He notices that, too, sees your discomfort and follows you, moving toward you, and before you know it you're backed up against a wall, his eyes boring into yours, studying you. Without really meaning to, you look down at his arms, crossed across his chest, at the wounds on the left one.

He snarls a little, grabs you by your jacket and pulls you back into your room. "Alright," he says, "so you know. Excellent work, Nancy, you've been following me around with your shovel in case you needed to kill me."

You nod.

"You could have said something," he says, leaning against the door.

"When did it happen?"

"The same day we got here. You were sleeping."

"What ... what did you do?"

He doesn't say anything for a moment. "Well, what do you think I did?"

You shudder and look away. "So it's been, what, four days?"

"Yeah."

"You don't feel any different?"

"No."

"So that lady was right. I don't think it's communicable."

"It doesn't seem like it. Still, don't want to take any chances there, Newbie."

You don't feel the need to follow him anymore, so you let him go alone. There's a couple of Vonnegut novels on the nightstand that he's already read, and you pick one up and try to read it - you can't quite do it, because you see the words, and you know them, but you can't seem to make them make sense together. You're thinking about how you accepted one set of rules about this whole catastrophe and now they just don't seem to be the right ones. You should have known, really, not to take advice from movies.

You're also thinking about Dr. Cox and the condoms you stole a couple of days ago.

Thunder wakes you up, and you're terrified. You sit up in bed, wishing you had your iPod or something with you so you could at least try to ignore the storm outside.

Dr. Cox is already awake, standing next to the window, parting the vertical blinds with his fingers and looking outside. He hears you stirring and looks back at you, asking, "Can't sleep?"

You shake your head. "The storm's too loud." He flicks on a lamp and you wince, blinking stupidly while your eyes adjust. You were curled up on your side, and your back feels a little weird - it doesn't exactly hurt, but it's not comfortable - so you stretch, arching your back a little, your arms over your head. He's still looking at you.

You get up and move to stand next to him, trying to see what's so interesting outside, but there's nothing. It's dark out, and the moon is casting a sick, wan glow over everything. "They haven't come for us, have they?" you ask, a little anxious, and he looks over at you again and shakes his head. You sigh, relieved.

You find yourself edging closer to him, and you figure he's getting annoyed with you because he snaps at you that this better be good, and you decide to forget subtlety, because if you don't do it now you probably won't do it.

So you turn to him and you kiss him.

And he pushes you back, shoving your hands away. Stares at you. Your breathing picks up, and for a second all you can really think about is how glad you are that he didn't punch you in the face. You come to your senses again and wow, Dr. Cox is kissing you. You're not really sure what to do with your hands, so you settle for resting them at his hips, urging him closer. He takes a fistful of your hair and pulls your head back, biting and sucking at your neck, and you shiver when he runs his tongue along your clavicle. "Oh," you murmur, your fingers clutching at the hem of his shirt.

When he pushes you down onto your bed you wonder if your lips are bruising, and you're strangely okay with it. His fingers are just above the waistband of your jeans, teasing the skin there, and _is he ever going to get on with it?_ Your hips start pushing forward, up toward his hands, but he just snickers a little and keeps dipping lower only to come back up, his mouth still at your neck. He's got you down to your boxers when he bothers to ask you, "Have you got anything?" His voice is low and has kind of an edge to it and that doesn't help _at all_.

"Yeah," you say, cursing a little because now you actually have to get up and hunt through your bag for condoms and lube, and your fingers are shaking so it's kind of hard to get the plastic seal off the bottle of lube and you rip the box of condoms right open. You give them to him and you can see the beginnings of a smirk on his face, and he opens his mouth and starts to say something. You want to tell him to shut up and get on with it, but of course you don't, and you barely notice what he says. Your breath hitches in your throat when he goes back to what he was doing before, and there's thunder and lightning outside and you want to laugh at how ridiculous all of this is: you're on the run from zombies, people you care about are dead, and now you're sleeping with your mentor while there's an overblown and overdramatic storm outside.

His fingers are wrapped inside a condom and they're inside you, fluttering in a way that makes you gasp and clench your fists. _Fuck._ He starts stroking you, and you keep expecting him to stop when you're stretched out enough, but he keeps going. You've lost control of the words that are coming out of your mouth and your hips are basically just moving on their own now, trying to get closer, and it's like you just can't get enough _contact_ and it's _killing_ you. Your fists curl around handfuls of the sheets on the bed: he's moving so slowly, so languidly, like you've got all the time in the world and you're actually close to coming when he stops.

You groan a little, frustrated, still twitching and shaking, losing your mind because you were so _close_ and now he's taking his time getting ready and you don't dare go on by yourself because that'll be it. So you sit up, you take the condom package out of his hands and you pull his jeans down yourself, licking your lips and running your tongue up the length of him and he actually moans - god, you can hardly believe what you're hearing. His fingers are in your hair again, gripping a little too tightly, but it's easy to ignore after a few seconds.

You take him as deep as you can, your cheeks hollowed. "Oh, Christ," he whispers.

He calls you a tease when you pull away and look up at him through your eyelashes, tracing swirling patterns with your tongue. "Get up here," he says eventually, and pushes you over on your stomach. You start to protest because you kind of wanted to be facing him but then you figure that you either do this his way or not at all, so you shut up and just hold onto the headboard of your bed. He positions himself behind you, and even though he goes slow it _hurts_, Jesus _Christ_ it hurts, and you squeeze your eyes shut so hard you see stars. You can't breathe for a second.

"Stop." It takes him a moment to ask you if you're alright. You nod. "Yeah." But he doesn't go on yet, and asks you again. "Okay. Yeah. Okay," you say, your breathing a little harsh.

"Okay?" he asks, and you nod again, and he pushes back in and it gets easier this time, but you're still gripping the headboard like your life depended on it. He does it again, and again, and again, and eventually it doesn't hurt anymore, but you're still squeezing your eyes shut and holding onto the headboard and crying out sometimes. "Oh god," you murmur, and the mattress springs are squeaking and groaning beneath you and distantly you hope there's no one trying to sleep in the rooms around you, but you can't really help the noises you're making, he's moving so hard and deep and fast, stroking you again, his fingers warm and strong, a little out of rhythm, his lips occasionally on the back of your neck, sucking hard, probably leaving marks.

You come first, so hard you thrash around a little and your head bangs against the wall. You're still mumbling a little, your eyes closed and your head resting against the headboard. He's not moving as frantically anymore, but his fingers are digging into your hips a little painfully. He lets go when he comes, and he pulls you to him, his grip tightening around you, so hard you almost can't breathe.

You feel boneless as you lie down, and you hate to get up but you really want to clean yourself up. There's kind of a mess on your bed and you're really not looking forward to sleeping in a puddle of lube and come, but it looks like you don't have much of a choice: when you leave the bathroom, Dr. Cox is back in his own bed, probably already asleep.

You feel a little resentful as you pull the sheets off the bed and spread the comforter over the bare mattress, stumbling around a little because it's dark in here (he shut the lamp off) and your bones feel like jelly and your knees are still shaky. The springs groan as you lie down, trying to avoid wet spots (ew), when you hear Dr. Cox mumble, "Newbie."

"What?"

"The hell are you doin'?"

"Um. Going to bed?"

"Over here."

So you climb into bed next to him, nervously lingering over by the edge. You fall asleep quickly, despite the storm outside, but you wake up a little later and his arm is across your hips, and you breathe a sigh of relief.

ix. _exeunt_

You've been trying to get in touch with Turk and Carla since the day after they left, and you've been getting Turk's voice mail every time.

Today the message is different.

"We're okay for now. We were trying to go east, but our car broke down. Someone picked us up on the highway, and we set up a camp, but we don't think we'll be able to hold them off for much longer. The phone lines are back up but the power isn't. Things are still pretty bad.

"We could really use some help." You scramble to try to find a pen so you can write their location down. Dr. Cox watches you.

"They're in Texas," you say, staring down at the paper on the desk. You can hardly believe they're still alive. "They need help." You look over at him, and you already know he's going to refuse.

And why not? This is as good as it could possibly get - safe, with power and water and food. It would be stupid to leave to try to play the hero.

"Okay," you say. "You can stay. But I have to go. I can't ... I can't just leave them. I have to try."

You're bluffing, really. How are you supposed to leave one for the other? But you start packing up, hoping he won't call you on it, because if he does ... well, it's not like you'll be choosing between them then. You just won't be able to choose. This is not a decision you can make. You swipe your sleeve across your eyes, annoyed with yourself.

He leaves the room after a few minutes of watching you pack, and you guess that's it. You sit back down on his bed, defeated, staring at your bag lying half-packed on the table. After a minute, you sigh and get back to it. At least Dr. Cox will be safe here. Maybe if you manage to pick up Turk and Carla you can just bring them back here instead of continuing east.

You wonder if he's even going to give you the keys to the car or if you're going to have to steal another one.

He comes back as you've finished packing, and says, "Let's go."

"What?"

"You're ready, I'm ready, the car's ready. Let's _go_."

"Oh." There's a lot you want to say, but there are more pressing issues. "What do we do if we find them?"

"Keep going east, I guess. Might as well, right? If it's not out there. We're in the middle of it here, from what I've heard from everyone else."

"Okay."

"Besides," he adds as you're bringing all your crap out to the car, "I don't want to have to find where they keep the clean sheets."


	2. gunshot

i. _danger_

You did not miss traveling nonstop, but at least you're able to sleep better, even though you always wake up with pain in your neck.

You keep stealing quick looks at the wounds on his hand, and they look fine. Sometimes he catches you staring and he snarls at you, and you look away, discouraged. You realize that as worried as you are (and you are, enough that you've been trying to form a strategy in case he should suddenly get an insatiable craving for flesh), he's got to be terrified.

Turk and Carla are in Fredericksburg, right in the middle of Texas, and unfortunately the quickest and shortest way to get there is to go straight through El Paso and every single city on this stretch of highway. Zombie country.

You kind of wish he would say something, or tell you about some plan he's got, because you've got nothing. You could tell him about how scared you are, the abject terror you're feeling that you're going to die or he's going to die or that you'll get to where Turk and Carla are staying and they'll be dead or zombies and the second you walk in they'll devour you. You're thinking about how he would respond to that only to realize that he _is_ responding to it, because you've said it already. Dammit.

"Alright, Jessica, lookit. This is no time to be worrying about that pretty manicure of yours. If you start getting hysterical in the middle of a situation, we're going to be the menu, got it? Foie Cox with a garnish of finely shredded Newbie. And if I go down, so help me God, Nadia, you're going down with me."

"That helps," you reply quietly after a moment, turning back toward the window and frowning a little.

ii. _pavement_

It's easier to pretend you're asleep than to let Dr. Cox know that you're awake and be forced to make a point of not looking at him.

You haven't failed to notice when his eyes are red and a little puffy, and you remember what happened the other night and _oh god you are a horrible person_. You didn't even think about Jordan and Jack and JD. "I'm sorry," you blurt out, and it doesn't occur to you that this might not be a conversation he wants to have until you've already said it.

He looks over at you, his eyebrows twitching upward a little. "What?"

"Nothing," you reply quickly. You never thought you'd feel like _you_ were taking advantage of _Dr. Cox_.

But he actually seems interested. For once. "This about the other night?" You don't respond, only look away, and he adds, "It is."

"Yeah. I mean ... yeah. I guess I wasn't really thinking about ... you know. Jordan."

"Stop," he cuts you off. "This is not the time, Sally."

"You can't just ignore this -"

"Of course I can't." His voice is dark and he's not looking at you, staring straight ahead with a glare on his face. He growls and slams his foot down on the brakes, and you hear the squeal of rubber on pavement as the car comes to a sudden stop. On the stereo, Neil Young is whining about needles or something, and Dr. Cox reaches forward to shut it off.

You kind of wish he hadn't done that, because the silence is so tense, you just want to get out of the car and never get back in. Jesus, you've really done it now. He's breathing short, harsh breaths that make you cringe.

"Yes, my family is now in a state that, let's say, is unsatisfactory." You're looking at him, holding your breath and kind of trying to sink down into the seat. "Jesus," he mutters, still looking ahead of him and not even sparing a glance at you. "What do you want me to say? That I miss them? That I wish I could have done something? You're smart enough to figure that one out on your own by now, aren't you?" He runs his fingers through his hair, and opens the driver's side door, unbuckling his seat belt and stepping out of the car.

For a minute, you don't know whether you should get out too or just stay where you are, so you just watch him. He's staring again, across the huge oil field that you've stopped beside. The machines are still. He puts his hands on the back of his head, and god, what if you see tears in his eyes? What the hell do you do then? He's likely to rip your larynx out if you say anything, but you get out and stand next to him anyway.

"You can probably guess at the last thing I said to her," he says after a few minutes. You nod, and he leans back against the car, his back against the driver's side window, his thumb and index finger pinching the bridge of his nose. "They could have gotten away, I guess. Maybe."

You wait a few minutes before you put your hand on his shoulder, wondering if it's a particularly wise course of action. But he doesn't say anything, doesn't even look at you for a moment.

You don't know what to expect. Maybe he'll yell at you, maybe he'll call you Ricki or Jenny or another girl's talk show host name, maybe he'll get back in the car, lock the doors and speed away, leaving you for the zombies.

You aren't expecting him to kiss you, though, fingers gripping the lapels of your jacket and pulling you to him. You push him away. "No. I don't want to do this again. Not now, anyway."

"Who said this was negotiable?" he replies, and pulls you back toward him again, and when he reaches down to unzip your jeans you realize it's getting harder to remember the reasons why this is a particularly bad idea, and by the time he spits in his palm and starts stroking you, your brain has pretty much checked out because his lips are on your neck and his knee is between your thighs and you're pushing forward to meet his hand, gripping his shoulders and trying not to make too many girly noises.

_God, this is so fucked up,_ you think. The thought keeps coming back into your head, even as you're panting and your hands are scrabbling for something to hold onto and he's quickening his strokes and you're coming, spilling everywhere, letting out a choked cry and leaning forward to rest your forehead on his shoulder. _God, this is so fucked up._

And now that it's over, you try not to think about it. You're covered in uncomfortable stickiness with your pants down around your knees, he's looking through the car for something to clean his hand with, you feel boneless again, and you're trying not to think about this, or about the fact that you won't get to return the favor (a word which you use dubiously), or about the fact that he seems entirely unaffected by all of it, or about the fact that - considering what you were just talking about - it makes you feel kind of dirty.

"C'mon, Rita, clean yourself up and let's get going." He gives you a couple of tissues, and you make a face as you wipe it off your stomach and your clothes as best you can. Ew.

You get back in the car and it's like he never stopped to begin with, like you didn't say a word. The stereo is back on and the landscape is rushing by your window.

You pretend you're asleep. It's easier that way.

iii. _transit_

Sometimes if you're lucky, you really do fall asleep.

And when that happens, you dream. And when that happens, it's usually a nightmare.

Sometimes you wake up gently, even though in your dreams you're screaming. Sometimes you wake up with a shout, and you look over at Dr. Cox and you have to touch him, just to make sure he's there; you'll settle for putting your hand on his knee even though you want to cling to him. He doesn't say anything, but sometimes you see his features soften a little.

You wake up, breathing hard, and you reach for him and you don't find anything. You glance around and you realize the car's stopped and he's not in it.

"Dr. Cox?" you call, your voice making your panic more apparent than you'd like it to. You struggle with your seat belt and get out of the car, stumbling a little. "_Dr. Cox_?"

"What?" He sounds irritable, frowning at you.

"Oh. Nothing," you reply, a little embarrassed. "Sorry." He's standing next to the driver's side door, leaning against the car. Your heart starts slowing back down, and you hesitate to move closer to him. "What's up?" you ask, shuffling around a little, looking at him over the roof of the car and scuffing a little at the ground with your shoes.

He shrugs. "Needed a break from driving."

"Oh."

You shuffle around some more, until he sighs and snaps, "Oh, what the hell, Newbie. I don't _bite_," and you have to hold back a smile at that, and he does too. You move over next to him, still looking at the ground - anywhere but at him, really. After a long, long while, he says, "Thanks for coming to get me. You know. From my place. I probably wouldn't have left."

You nod. "Sure." You should say something, probably, something important or profound but all you can really come up with, in your bleary, sleepy stupor, is "I'm glad you're not a zombie." He gives you a weird look, and you add, "I mean, of _course_, but -" You decide to shut up before you start babbling. No sense making him regret talking to you.

Instead you let the awkward silence continue and your mind wander to visions of Dr. Cox zombies moaning for Newbie brains until he whistles at you, snapping his fingers a little, telling you that this is so not the time for daydreaming and it's time to go.

He surprises you by giving the keys (practically throwing them at you) and you really really don't want to drive. You try to push them back into his hands but he's already getting in on the passenger side (_your_ side, you think resentfully). "I've been driving for days, Daisy, and frankly I think you've gotten enough beauty sleep." He grabs one of the pillows from the backseat and leans against it, resting against the window.

After an hour or so of listening to him snoring gently in the passenger seat, you begin to wonder how the hell he was able to do this for so long. There's no change in the landscape and you find yourself wishing for something to happen. Nothing bad, though. Nothing like the car breaking down or anything.

Then for another hour you're terrified that those thoughts are really going to get you in trouble, that now's the time when those horrible things will happen. That the car will break down and zombies will flow in from all directions. You shudder, and keep glancing over at Dr. Cox, who is not a zombie yet.

You don't know why you're still so sleepy, since the whole time you've been traveling it seems like you don't do anything _but_ sleep, despite the nightmares you keep having. It's not like sleeping in a car and waking up every few minutes with a nightmare is particularly good sleep, though. Maybe that's it. No need to think that you're the one you should be worrying about, that you could be the one who could become a zombie. You haven't been bitten, right? Then again, it doesn't seem likely that biting will really do anything at all except maybe get a little infected if you don't clean it.

You see a sign that says Fredericksburg is only seventy miles away, and it finally occurs to you that you might need a plan. Maybe you can call Turk. Your cell phone is sitting in the console, and you dial his number.

He answers and at first you're so stunned you can't says anything at all. "Hello?" he repeats, "JD?"

"Turk." Your voice is a little ragged, and you clear your throat. "Are you guys okay?"

"For now. How are you? Where are you?"

"We're coming to Fredericksburg. I got your message."

"Who's with you?" You can tell he's holding his breath, hoping for good news.

"Dr. Cox," you reply. "We ... Jordan ..." You can't go on. You hope he gets the point.

"Oh," he says.

"We're close to Fredericksburg. About seventy miles away. What's happening there?"

"They're kind of closing in. And we don't have the fuel to leave here."

"So what do we do when we get there?"

"We were hoping you could get us out of here."

"I was hoping you'd say that."

"Other people have been going to New Orleans. I don't think it's out there." He pauses. "Yet."

You say goodbye (it's even harder than last time, because you've already had one last goodbye but now there's another one, because what if you don't make it? What if the zombies who are pounding at the gates break through and get Turk and Carla? What if they get you on your way there?) and you think about how everything lately is so fabled. Rumors. How the infection isn't spread through the bite. How if you could go just a little further you could find safety. Like a promised land.

iv. _accelerate_

You drive very slowly when you get to Fredericksburg, after being scared half to death by the first zombie that ran out into the road as you approached. You really don't want to wreck the car.

When you were going to Dr. Cox's apartment, carefully avoiding crowds of people because you didn't know which mobs would be zombies and which would be living people, one attacked you. She saw you crossing the street and ran toward you, away from the rest of the group, which was closing in on a group of looters, and you were terrified, because she looked for all the world like she was intelligent. Her face looked like it had a facial expression. Angry. Hungry. Predatory. She - well, it - rushed at you, moaning, and you don't remember making the decision to swing your shovel at it, but you did, and it faltered, almost as if it was confused.

So you took your chance and you side-swiped it, swinging the shovel like a baseball bat, the blade connecting with the zombie's temple. The zombie fell to its knees, still reaching for you, and you kicked her - it - in the chest and slammed the shovel down onto its face.

When it stopped moving, you were mildly horrified, hoping she - _it_ - really was a zombie, because what if she - _it_, dammit - was just some addict on PCP?

You stood over the body for a few moments, subconsciously aware of the mob of zombies still making its way toward the storefronts across the street, and you mostly just wanted to find a quiet corner somewhere and curl up and maybe cry. You wanted some sound-canceling headphones to wear, and you wanted to go back home and sleep until this all passed.

You feel a lot like that now, with corpses everywhere: bodies ripped apart, attracting flies, maggots writhing around, zombies moving toward the car, some walking, some running. Oh god. "Dr. Cox?" You wonder how the hell he can sleep at a time like this. "_Dr. Cox._ Oh god, wake up, please." You don't want to take your eyes off the road to look at him, but there's that worry again, that the zombies really did get him. You shake him a little, still watching the road and going as fast as you dare with zombies flooding toward the car.

"Newbie, what the _hell_ is your problem? _Run over them_, they're already _dead_, for Christ's sake!" As he reaches into the backseat to get the shotgun you found (okay, some would say you stole it - that was only a few days ago, and even though it smelled horrible and there were dead bodies just stacked up along the side of the road, you'd give anything to be back there right now), he tells you not to make him regret coming along with you, or letting you drive, because god forbid you should actually be able to do something without him hovering over your shoulder, even now that your very lives depend on it.

"Shut up!" you shout. "This is so not helping!" Your voice has risen about eight octaves, and he sneers at you and you ignore the girl's name because the zombies have caught up with you and they're holding on to the side of the car, and you reach down to press the button to lock the doors. "Fuck." Your heart is beating so fast it's making you feel a little nauseous (or maybe that's just the smell and the zombies and the fact that _you're going to die_) and you wonder how Turk and Carla have managed to survive here for so long. "They're staying at a school with some other people," you say, gritting your teeth. "It's along this road. Oh god, we just have to get there and get inside without getting _eaten_ and then get Turk and Carla and Izzy and all their stuff back in the car _without getting eaten_ and then drive again, east, to New Orleans and hopefully it won't spread out there so we can get somewhere safe _without getting eaten_." You're losing it.

You press down on the accelerator, and as fast as they can run (and, oh, they can run) they can't keep up with a car going seventy miles an hour, and the suspension is probably suffering from all of them that you're running over, but at least they're not eating you. You try not to think about the movies where the thing that the protagonist fears is waiting right in the back seat for him (or maybe the passenger seat, because as far as you're concerned, Dr. Cox isn't out of the woods yet) and jumps out at the very moment that it looks like he'll get away.

Dr. Cox is really making you nervous with that gun. "It's not loaded," he says to you, holding up a couple of cartridges. "Calm down."

You don't answer him, and let your white knuckles and tense shoulders speak for themselves.

v. _shots_

The school where they've set up is in the town limits, and you can see a pile of dead bodies on the soccer field. Dead zombies, maybe, or dead people. Or both. You're sure the tires squealing on the pavement is not exactly helping your situation - you don't know how good their hearing is - but you really can't help it, you're so eager to get out of this car and make sure everyone's okay. You don't feel safe in such a small space.

You leave the car running and in drive, your foot on the brake, ready to drive if you need to, as you pull out your phone and call Turk. Now would be a very bad time for him to not answer. You'd go in yourself but the every door is barricaded and even if you could get in, there's no guarantee you won't get shot right away if someone sees you. He answers, and you whisper to him that you're here, in the parking lot, and you need a way in.

When you stumble in past desks and sandbags and boxes full of textbooks and god knows what else, Turk is standing there, and you're so relieved when you see him. He hugs you so hard you have trouble breathing, and you're smiling (although you tell yourself not to get too comfortable).

Carla comes up, Izzy in her carrier, to help fix the barricade and she hugs you and Dr. Cox, even more tightly than Turk did. They ask you where you've been hiding out and you tell them you found a motel in New Mexico where there was still water and electricity. Carla scowls and mutters a little, wondering how on earth you got so lucky to find a place like that. You follow them to help gather their things so you can leave as quickly as possible.

You're surprised when Carla tells you there are fifty other people staying here. "At first there were only a few of us, but then some of the people who weren't able to leave town came too, and then other people came across the building while they were heading east on the highway." She gets Izzy's diaper bag and stuffs it as full as she can, struggling with the zipper. "Most of them are staying in the gymnasium, but we decided to stay in here. We figured if we stayed in one of the classrooms it wouldn't bother everyone when Izzy started crying."

Dr. Cox has a far-away look in his eyes, staring at something out the window and across the parking lot, but from where you're standing you can't see it. "How are you on weapons?" he asks, glancing at her and then looking back out the window.

"Some people have them, some don't. Some of the others got whatever bullets they could from the stores in town. There wasn't much left, but it's been enough." She pauses. "A lot of the ... you know. A lot of them just seemed to drop dead on their own after a while."

"We've heard," Dr. Cox replies.

Dr. Cox lags behind as you, Turk, and Carla start bringing things out to the car. Before you can get out the door, he grabs your shoulder and pushes the pistol into your hands. "Hide this," he says, and leads you over to the window. "Look."

Standing in one of the windows in the hallway, upstairs, is a man, looking down at your car, watching Carla and Turk.

"What ... has he been watching us this whole time?"

He nods grimly, and adds, "We should get out of here fast. He had a gun."

Your eyes widen, and you nod, unsure what to do with the gun in your hand. "Keep it quiet, alright? He'll get suspicious if he sees all four of us watching him," Dr. Cox adds. "He might get ideas. We want him up there."

You nod again, grabbing whatever you can and running out to catch up to Carla and Turk, not taking the time to organize the things in the trunk. "JD, don't rush this. We have a lot of stuff to carry, we want to conserve our space."

You laugh nervously, trying not to keep looking up at the man in the window too obviously. You look one minute, and he's there, and the next minute, he's gone, and you yelp, "Sorry, Carla! Just excited to get back on the road and get out of here, you know?" So you start taking bags and shoving them into the trunk. "It's just a bunch of clothes anyway, we can squish them down, right?" You put all your weight against the bags and close the trunk, looking back to see if Dr. Cox is still watching you all. "There's not much left. Let's go."

"Are you sure you're alright?" Turk asks, "You're acting a little ..." He trails off, and sees you looking back at Dr. Cox every few seconds, and you know what he's thinking. "You and -"

"Shh!" you say, and then Carla catches on, and it might not be good that they're so distracted, because they're demanding answers, and you're trying to tell them, "Later!" but Turk knows you won't talk about it when Dr. Cox is around.

Shit.

And then there's a gunshot, and another one, and you're running, the pistol in your hand with two stupid bullets, and you have no idea what you're doing when you run into the classroom where Turk and Carla were staying. You figured you had more _time_, time to get out of here before that guy did anything stupid.

When you get there, the man's body is on the floor and Dr. Cox is clutching at his shoulder, leaning against the wall, blood seeping through his fingers. You hear yourself shouting, and you check desperately for other wounds, running your hands down his abdomen and lifting his shirt. "There's a better time for _that_, Priscilla," he says, grimacing, his teeth gritted.

"He only shot you once?"

"Yeah." He moves his hand aside to show you, and you see both an entry and exit wound. "Come on," you say, leading him toward the door, picking up the shotgun. "We have some supplies in the car, I can clean it and bandage you up." Carla and Turk have caught up to you, and you tell them to get everything else and take it to the car.

But a group of people stops you in the hallway. "What the hell is going on here?" a woman demands.

"He's _hurt_!" you reply. "Get out of the way. I have to fix this!"

"Who do you think you are, coming here and starting fights? Who shot him?"

"He's in there," Dr. Cox says, gesturing with his good arm to the classroom behind you. A man runs past him and, after a moment, shouts, "He shot Andrew!" A few others storm past you, and when they come back, the man says, "He's dead."

You hear coughing and groaning from inside the classroom. "Well, maybe not," The man adds as the others rush back into the classroom. "But you _shot_ him!"

"He was going to _kill_ us," Dr. Cox snaps. "What the hell would you have done?"

"Why would he want to kill you?"

"Because we're getting out of here. We're getting our friends and leaving."

Everyone is silent for a moment, and then a woman says, "You have a car?" Her voice is low, and it gives you chills. She points a gun at you. "Give me the keys."

"Sandra!" As soon as she pulls the gun, there's panic, and the others try to get her to put the gun down, but she pulls away from them.

"Alright!" you shout, and bring up your shotgun, aiming at Sandra, stepping between her and Dr. Cox, Carla, Turk, and Izzy. "This stops _now_." You take the pistol from your jacket. "Turk, Carla? Take this. Get to the car. We'll be there in a minute."

"JD -" Carla starts, but you shake your head.

"Go!" you shout, and they rush out the door. You haven't taken your eyes off the people in front of you. "Give me your gun," you say to Sandra.

"No."

"That shotgun's loaded with scatter-shot," Dr. Cox warns. "If he pulls the trigger, you're all going to wish he hadn't."

"Do what they say, Sandra," one of the other women says. She looks back at you and adds, "None of the rest of us are armed. She's the only one." As Sandra hands the gun over, she starts to cry.

"Please," she says through her sobs, "I have a little girl. We're running out of _everything_ and ... oh god. We're going to die here."

You falter, and you're about to lower your gun without thinking when Dr. Cox snaps, "Newbie, don't you _dare_. Let's get out of here."

You walk backwards through the parking lot, keeping the gun trained on them. Sandra has fallen to her knees, leaning against the wall and sobbing, beating at the concrete with her fists. The same woman is comforting her, and no one else as moves as you're walking away.

"Dr. Cox," you say, "they're ... there's no way they can -"

"Yeah. We're the lucky ones."

"Should we -"

"No. But leave their gun here."

Before you help Dr. Cox into the car, you put Sandra's gun down on the asphalt of the parking lot. Carla is quietly sniffling in the backseat while Turk holds Izzy. You rest your forehead against the steering wheel, gripping the wheel with white knuckles. You feel a hand on your shoulder, and Dr. Cox says softly, "Newbie. Let's go."

You nod and start the car, and pull over about a mile from the school to clean and bandage Dr. Cox's wound. As you search through the trunk for supplies, he says, "Hey. You did good back there."

"I didn't even try to help that guy."

"I _shot_ that guy."

"I left a whole group of people to starve to death."

"So did I. So did Carla and Gandhi. We didn't have much of choice there, did we?"

"I guess." You pour the alcohol over the entry and exit wounds, letting it dry, and wrap it with gauze, taping it up with medical tape. "You'll be wanting some of this," you say, giving him the bottle of Demerol from your bag.

"Thanks."

"Yeah." You really don't want to start driving again just yet, so you close the trunk and sit on the back, your legs dangling over the side. Dr. Cox stands next to you, leaning against the car, and swallows one of the pills you gave him. You're glad you raided that drugstore. "I'll give it another twelve hours and check it again to watch out for an infection." You look over at him and ask, "So what happened?"

He glares at you and replies, "I got shot. What else is there?"

"Why did he shoot you? Did he _say_ anything?"

He doesn't answer you for a second, and then says, "No." You don't press it, even though you could, because he's obviously lying. Your head and your muscles ache and you really wouldn't mind going to sleep for a few minutes or hours or days. You lie back, your back pressing against the glass of the rear window, your hands cradling your head.

"We should keep moving," he says, turning to look at you. "We can probably make it there by tomorrow morning."

Turk gets out of the car and asks Dr. Cox, "How's your arm?"

"The bullet went through," you answer before Dr. Cox can. "I gave him some Demerol, and we're just going to watch it for any infection."

"So are we ready to go?"

"You'll have to excuse Calamity Jane here," Dr. Cox interrupts. "She's busy pouting." You'd like to shout at him, ask him if he can ever keep his mouth shut, but instead you look over at Turk and say, "Sorry. I just needed a minute," and get down off the back of the car.

"One of us can drive," he says, pointing at Carla, sitting in the backseat, and then back at himself.

You're hesitant to ask for that, but Dr. Cox interrupts again and you find yourself sitting in the backseat with him, wedged between him and Izzy, who is strapped in her car seat. By now Dr. Cox is snoring gently, squished up against you, and your head eventually lolls back and you find yourself struggling to stay awake.

When you wake up, your head is resting on Dr. Cox's shoulder. He's still sound asleep, and you pull his sleeve up to unwrap the gauze wrapped around his arm. Blood has soaked through, and you get another strip of gauze from your bag, pour some alcohol on it to clean the wound again and wipe the dried blood off of his skin, and re-wrap it with some clean gauze and tape. He's since woken up, and his eyes are half-lidded, watching you as if you're some stranger in a dream.

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**a/n: **This part was slated to be the last, but I think it still has quite a bit left to go. Hopefully I'll be right this time when I say that the next part will be the last. Stick with me!

Points for anyone who got the _Shaun of the Dead_ reference in the first part.


End file.
